Headed by DCI Sutton, the team used hours of CCTV footage and hundreds of witness statements to piece together the case, eventually arresting Bellfield three months after Amelie's body was discovered in August 2004.

Amélie Delagrange was murdered on her way home

The first episode starts with the discovery of Miss Delagrange's body on Twickenham Green. The area is cordoned off and police start a painstaking search for evidence in the area.

A scene showed a witness, named only as Mr Morris, come forward to give information to detectives investigating on Twickenham Green.

Argentine Diego Maradona, whose resemblance to Levi Bellfield is limited to the colour of his hair, is a retired professional football player, considered by fans as one of the greatest players of all time.

Killer Levi Bellfield (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)

Manhunt was based on the detailed memoirs of Colin Sutton, who collaborated extensively with the writer, Ed Whitmore, to make sure the story was told as authentically and accurately as possible. Every character that appears in the show is based on a real person.

Whitmore told the Sunday Express in November last year: "I think some of those actual lines were in the memoir written by Colin Sutton. I think Maradona was.

"There was a lot of low level mirth about that. It's a release, isn't it?"

Scenes of the investigation were filmed on Twickenham Green (Image: Neil Genower, Buffalo Picture for ITV)

The drama has responded to multiple accusations of insensitivity throughout filming. Producers have faced a backlash from locals for choosing to film in the real place where Amelie was found in Twickenham.

The spot where schoolgirl Milly Dowler - who Bellfield was later convicted of killing - was last seen in Walton-on-Thames in 2002 was also used for filming, to the dismay of those who argued the show would cause yet further grief for the family.

Clunes defended the use of real locations, telling the Daily Mirror: "It’s not violence porn in any way. There’s no blood. It’s about dogged police work.

When it came to the inclusion of jokes told by detectives in the office, Clunes told the Express: "It was just the currency of day-to-day people getting by and the way they talk to each other. But if it makes an audience laugh, that's OK, too."

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